Susan Johnson (6 page)

He looked down at her, at the rosy glow on her cheeks and the blush sliding down her throat, and said, “That’s nice.” He was moving by inches and degrees, conscious in an odd way that he was responsible for more than just her pleasure tonight, touched somehow by her innocent giving of herself. He’d always played at love, lushly and expertly but lightly, his mind and emotions uninvolved. It was a game where skill, opulence, sensation, all contrived to enhance the most exquisite sport of all—
amour.
A new element overshadowed his familiar responses tonight. Caring, perhaps … more: a
feeling for her courage and open giving. Somehow it changed the game.

“You’re very … large,” she breathed, tracing her fingers down his chest and flat stomach, stopping just short of the elusive object of her sentence. “Will it hurt?”

Her eyes lifted, and he found himself momentarily at a loss for words. “No,” he finally said, wondering if she’d hate him later for the lie, “it won’t hurt.”

“I’m glad it was you there in the parlor,” she whispered, her gaze softly heated and direct. “I’m really glad.” And she lifted her mouth to kiss him, wanting to stay on her pink-tipped cloud.

“I wanted you more than anyone else,” Trey murmured, and he realized suddenly that it was true. It wouldn’t have had to be Jake Poltrain wanting her. Any one of them down there would have elicited the same response. As an Absarokee, he was attuned to his feelings and personal vision and earthly energy, and he knew. She was written on his fate—delicate, strangely asexual, yet erotically provocative in her man’s garb—and he had had to have her.

“I want you. Am I saying it right?” she inquired in a lushly throaty tone. “I’m floating on a soft, heated cloud right now. You’re very good,” she murmured, tightening her arms around him.

“Move over, Empress, darling,” Trey whispered, brushing his mouth across her half-parted lips. “I’m climbing on your cloud.”

She was
his
cloud lying beneath him, perfumed with lilac, warm as sensuous longing, arching her back slightly to feel the solid strength of him poised lightly above her, his elbows politely taking the majority of his weight. Her erect nipples teased the hard muscles of his chest, and her full breasts moved silkily against him as her hands gently stroked his back. It was as if she’d set a brush pile ablaze inside his body, and the flame spread so swiftly with each new kiss and gentle movement, it outstripped the wind.

It had been too long since he’d first walked in to see her rising from her bath, too long for his arousal despite the halts and delays, too long to play with teasing kisses. He was past waiting suddenly, past politeness and better intentions. She would have to take him now.

His mouth came down on hers, out of control, barbaric in its plundering invasion, and she yielded to his onslaught, at first with a sighing welcome, as if she’d waited for him all her life. But moments later her hands clung to his shoulders with a madness of their own, and she lifted her hips tentatively against his maleness, enticing him to enter her, reaching for surcease to the trembling desire flooding through her to the tips of her quivering toes. She ached for him, yearned for him, heated, damp, and swollen, was ready for him.

Nothing mattered to either of them now but putting out the fire. All the alien, labyrinthine reasons for being in each other’s arms disappeared abruptly, burned away by an astonishing sense of joy and wanting so relentless and powerful, there was no turning back. Stroking the softness of Empress’s inner thighs, Trey gently pushed them apart, settling his lean hips between her legs. Then his fingers touched the moist, heated entrance to his paradise and slid lushly over her wetness.

Empress gasped, holding her breath while the exquisite sensations spread like sweet wine through her senses. “Do that again,” she breathed shakily when reality at last returned minimally at the edges of her mind.

He did, and she thought she would die.

“Can you die of pleasure?” she whispered with a sigh into the curve of his shoulder. “
How
do you know—” But Trey’s expert fingers slid in farther, curtailing the question, for Empress was suddenly lost to everything but the hurtling ecstasy.

“You’re beautiful,” Trey said softly, stroking gently, so the world spun away for Empress into a golden rapture of feeling. “Wet and hot and beautiful,” he added in a husky rasp. “I can’t wait. Hold me now, darling.” Fitting himself where his fingers had tantalized, he drove into her tight, velvety sweetness. He felt her go rigid beneath him, but it was over and he lay quiet inside her then until she relaxed, the quick, thrusting pain dissipated. His hand closed on her hips, as if he could brush away the hurt with the drifting warmth of his fingers, and a moment later he began moving inside her, delicately testing the limits of her pleasure or pain. He took his time, his frenzy gone now that he was where he most wanted to be, carefully slid upward only to withdraw as carefully, murmured love words, stroked and fondled until he felt her glide
lusciously around him and heard her whisper in a quiet entreating voice, “More …”

He obliged, gallant and sure, in a deepening rhythm she met with arched hips and strong arms pulling him close. Her breathing was ragged with passion, his own unquiet as they touched each other in an uncontrolled penetration and greedy taking until she was feverish beneath him and around him, frantically shuddering so near the brink, he knew it was only seconds more. His hands slid down her slender hips and under her silky bottom, and he pulled her meltingly into his next, slow deliberate downthrust. Feeling her first tiny convulsion begin when he was buried deep inside her, he let himself at last fill her with the hot desire she’d roused in him from his first glimpse of her in Lily’s parlor. And she clung to him while the tidal wave of enchantment swept over her. And softly cried out his name. And left bloody half-moons from her nails on his shoulders.

Moments later, orgasmic but not sated, Trey lay inside her, intoxicated by a curiously restless passion, desperately wanting more of her. Two weeks, six days, twenty-three hours, he thought, and bending his head to kiss her soft warm mouth, he knew he was going to wear himself out and wear her out and feel every acute, sensitive, earnest, sharp, shimmering flavor of love in the next three weeks.

He didn’t question the fact that this sensation was staggeringly unique in his experience; he only looked forward profoundly to the ensuing delight. He had found his mate—at least his mate for a transient number of weeks—and with primordial instinct, by taste, feel, touch, he wished to make her his … again.

Empress said, “Stop,” breathless and panting after the third time, and startled, shaking his damp black hair out of his eyes, Trey stopped and looked at her as if she were from another planet. He saw her then with different eyes; she refocused, beautiful, rosy, half smiling at him. “You don’t have to work off the entire fifty thousand tonight,” she said, her glance warm and friendly.

“You’re different,” he replied, not answering her statement, explaining instead, however vaguely, a measure of her allure. He could feel the air on his skin. His nerves, in an unaccustomed fashion, were oversensitized, exposed.

She didn’t tell him she
felt
different, because her feelings were too chrysalis and undefined. But she felt as though something of immense importance had happened to her, and it wasn’t the denouement. She couldn’t say exactly what it was, but she knew this night would forever divide her life into before and after. It was very strange—as if she’d come alive tonight, as if she had immense new powers, a new secret nature that flowed beyond the confines of what had been until now a sheltered young girl’s life. “I’ll be here tomorrow,” she said, pleased with the sudden discovery of her new inherent powers, and reached up to brush a sleek wave of black hair from Trey’s forehead.

He smiled. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Damned selfish of me.” And with a brushing kiss across the tip of her straight nose, he rolled away and sprawled on his back.

“You needn’t be sorry,” Empress replied, half turning on her side and supporting herself on her elbow. He was quite beautiful, she decided, looking down at him lying selflessly natural, her glance examining him from his handsome face down over his heavily developed shoulders, across his torso covered sparely with taut sinew, to his trim hips and long, muscled legs.

“I’m not really,” he answered with a quick grin, his eyes wide and calm and smiling. And lacing his hands under his head, he added, “I’m not sorry at all. You’re unbelievable, you know.”

“Thank you. I didn’t know, of course … had no way of knowing … although, Mr.—”

“Trey.”

“Trey, you’re probably the one to thank. I expect women like you.…” She was intelligent enough to realize that all men weren’t as skilled and tender, or so gentle. Even as inexperienced as she was, she knew she had by a small miracle fallen into the hands of a man who oddly blended power and sensitivity.

“I suppose some do,” the man who had a reputation for extraordinary charm with women, in and out of bed, modestly replied.

“Do you do this often?” It was asked out of curiosity and naïveté.

He paused. What do you say to a newly ravished virgin—or
anyone, for that matter—asking such a pointed question? How do you politely say, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘often.’ Is your often the same as my often?”
I think this is one of those questions a gentleman is never supposed to answer
, he decided, remembering some advice on modesty and courtesy given him long ago by his father. He smiled. “I’d be happy to do it as often as you like. We’ll send down for food if I start tiring.”

“You enjoy me,” she said with a small pleased smile.

Unclasping his hands, he reached for one of hers and said, “Clever of you to notice.”

The look she gave him was new, part coquette, and delightful.

He squeezed her hand gently in unspoken intimacy, as if they were old friends. “Are you tired?” he asked out of solicitude but also out of an interest in changing the subject from his amorous activities.

“No, not really. Could we rest for a while, though?” she asked matter-of-factly, as if she were only requesting a short break from her job duties.

Trey settled back against the pillows, her hand still in his. “Tell me about yourself.”

“You tell me about yourself first,” Empress answered softly. She preferred anonymity, for once she left in three weeks, she intended to obliterate this interval.

Understanding her reluctance to divulge the details of her life, he politely acceded to her request, although her faint French accent was intriguing. They lay in bed side by side, her hand curled comfortably in his, and Trey was telling her about the Absarokee and his father’s clan when there was a knock at the door. Not diffident but curtly hard. And a deep masculine voice asked, “Are you decent?”

Trey’s voice, a shade deeper and laced with amusement, answered, “No, but come in.”

Empress slid under the covers when Blue walked in.

“She’s shy,” Trey said smilingly.

“Really,” Blue replied in a mockingly ironic tone, thinking she wasn’t too terribly shy, since she was obviously naked under the blankets. Leaning one shoulder against the door, he said, “Poltrain’s talking big downstairs. Thought I’d let you know,” he explained. “It’s the liquor, too, of course, but you
know how he feels about us and your family. Maybe Fox and I should guard your door tonight. He’s madder than hell about you outbidding him and is talking about settling the score with you. This one and all others too.”

“Don’t worry,” Trey responded calmly. “He won’t try anything at Lily’s. It’s just whiskey talk. And I know how you’ve been looking forward to seeing Kate. So don’t let Jake spoil your night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure, now?”

“Positive. Hell, I’m as safe here as I am at home.”

Blue’s glance surveyed the curved body under the covers. “How’s everything?” he asked cryptically.

“Fine. Just fine.” Trey’s mouth curved into a smile. “Really
really
fine,” he added softly.

Blue pushed away from the door. “See you in the morning, then.”

“Not too early.” Trey nodded in Empress’s direction.

“Would afternoon be better?” Blue asked with a grin.

“Afternoon,” Trey gently agreed, “would be much better.”

“
andirúxua, tsitsétse,”
Blue said with a teasing smile. (“Remember to get a little rest.”)

“Ahú
cǐ
a
iháwim co
bi
céky,”
Trey replied cheerfully. (“Plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”)